How to create effective anonymous surveys and use them for better feedback

It’s often unnecessary to know exactly who’s responding to your survey. Many issues—big or small—can be effectively tackled by focusing only on the responses themselves.

Anonymous surveys encourage honest responses, yielding more accurate insights. They work by keeping identities private while still allowing data segmentation based on characteristics such as age, gender, and the products or services they use.

But how do you create anonymous surveys? In this guide, we’ll explain why anonymous surveys matter, provide a step-by-step guide to creating them, and share best practices.

An anonymous survey is a data collection method that keeps respondents’ identities private, even after they have answered all its questions. No personal data, such as names, email addresses, IP addresses, or other identifying details, is collected. Survey administrators cannot even see who gave which answers.

Anonymous surveys are commonly used in:

Response anonymity enhances the overall value of survey insights by allowing respondents to answer freely and honestly. Anonymous surveys are used in a variety of ways to collect feedback from survey respondents. 

Here are several benefits of anonymous surveys:

Respondents are more likely to share their true thoughts when they feel secure in their anonymity, leading to more honest feedback on sensitive topics such as leadership effectiveness, workplace culture, or personal experiences.

Sometimes, survey respondents aren’t honest in their responses out of fear of repercussions.

For example, in a company culture survey, employees might hesitate to share honest feedback for fear of being singled out. Using anonymous employee surveys addresses this issue, allowing respondents to share candid employee feedback.

This is also true for complaint forms. When complaint forms are completely anonymous, respondents feel freer to express their true opinions. 

Making a survey anonymous can significantly boost participation because it alleviates the fear of repercussions. When respondents feel secure that their feedback is anonymous, they are more likely to share their honest thoughts and opinions.

In fact, some individuals will only participate if their responses remain nameless. Therefore, unless identifying information is essential, anonymous responses are generally the preferred option.

Anonymous surveys enhance data accuracy by encouraging respondents to provide truthful answers without fear of identification. This reduction in pressure allows researchers to gather higher-quality data and derive more meaningful insights.

When anonymous surveys are conducted regularly, a feedback loop is created, which helps organizations track changes over time. By embracing anonymous feedback, leaders demonstrate a commitment to listening and adapting. This commitment leads to better decision-making and smarter solutions. 

Setting up an anonymous survey isn’t difficult when you know the steps. An anonymous setup is important for ensuring that data is appropriately collected. Here’s how to build an anonymous survey in SurveyMonkey:

To build your survey, you can either start from scratch in our survey builder or start from one of our 400+ expert survey templates. These templates are easy to edit and provide a starting point for your survey. 

Once you’ve carefully written your survey questions and branded your survey (if applicable), you’re ready to enable anonymity settings. 

You’ll need to turn on Anonymous Responses for each collector (or method of sending your survey) you use. To do this:

Related reading: How to report on your survey results

Try to avoid using custom data or variables that are inherently personal, such as the respondent’s home address, name, or email address.

Note: Custom variables use the survey link to pass one or more values for each respondent into your results, while custom data allows you to store additional information about each respondent in Contacts (which can then potentially be viewed in your results).

It’s clear that questions like “What’s your name?” directly tell you who the respondent is, but so can other questions when you look at the survey as a whole.

For example, if you ask a respondent what their job title is and which organization they work for, you can more closely identify them.  

So be willing to sacrifice a question here and there if it helps keep respondents’ identities private.

Pro tip: Let respondents know you’re running an anonymous survey at the get-go. A great place to do this is in your survey’s introduction. It can read something as follows:

“Thank you for participating. We value your feedback, and we’ll keep all of your answers anonymous.”

It’s essential to know these best practices to ensure your anonymous surveys are successful. Follow these tips to get the best results. 

Turning on Anonymous Responses for each collector is essential, but so is avoiding questions that invite identifiable responses. Don’t ask for identifying information such as name, job title, department, email address, etc., to allow respondents to remain truly anonymous. 

Be clear in the survey introduction about how responses will be used. This gives respondents more information about why their responses matter and what they will help researchers do. Offering a clear survey introduction helps build trust among respondents and can improve data accuracy. 

Clearly communicate that all responses will be anonymous. This ensures that respondents understand their privacy is protected and responses are confidential. Being clear about anonymity provides respondents with a sense of comfort, allowing them to begin the survey with peace of mind. 

It’s always important to keep surveys focused and concise for the best data. Choose a primary goal for your survey and ensure that all questions align with it. This helps you create a concise survey that keeps respondents engaged. 

SurveyMonkey is only anonymous if you choose to make it so. SurveyMonkey offers anonymity settings to protect respondents’ privacy. 

If you need survey responses to be anonymous, turn on the Anonymous Responses setting before sending your survey. SurveyMonkey records respondent IP addresses in backend logs and deletes them after 13 months.

When Respondent Authentication is enabled, a survey cannot be anonymous since the participant’s SSO profile information is recorded and linked to their responses. 

Data is secure with SurveyMonkey. All respondent data is securely stored in our SOC 2-certified data centers, which follow industry-leading security and technical best practices. 

Learn more about security on our Data Security and Compliance standards.

Anonymity offers several benefits, including honest feedback, increased participation rates, improved data quality, and enhanced overall effectiveness. Make informed decisions with accurate data from anonymous responses. Build trust with respondents and gather honest feedback to support your survey’s goals. 
Collecting anonymous survey data has never been easier than with SurveyMonkey. Get started building anonymous surveys today!